Seeking Full Control and No Rent, Giants Offer to Pay for Stadium

By RONALD SMOTHERS and RICHARD SANDOMIR

Published: December 22, 2004

The owners of the New York Giants have offered to pay the entire cost, estimated at $700 million, to build a stadium for the football team on state land at the Meadowlands, in return for operating the stadium rent-free and controlling all events there year round, a team official said Tuesday.

''We are prepared to go the new stadium route, provided we reach the right agreement,'' said John Mara, confirming the latest development in weeks of negotiations between the team and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, the state-created agency that owns the land and the sporting complexes at the Meadowlands.

The proposal, first reported in The Star-Ledger of Newark, comes as Acting Governor Richard J. Codey is scheduled to meet on Wednesday with the team owners and sports authority officials as part of the ongoing negotiations to make a stadium deal.

The plan represents a shift in the team's position. Earlier it had asked the state to contribute to the construction of a stadium. Under that proposal, the new stadium, like the one there now, would remain under state ownership and would be leased to the team for the football season.

A spokesman for Mr. Codey, Sean Darcy, would not comment on Mr. Mara's proposal, except to say that the negotiations were continuing. Carl Goldberg, the chairman of the Sports and Exposition Authority, who has been the lead state negotiator with the Giants, and George Zoffinger, the president of the authority, also declined to discuss details of the talks.

Asked about the effect of the reports on the talks scheduled for Wednesday, Mr. Goldberg said, ''We have a meeting with an agenda of items to be discussed, and I contemplate going through those without any impact from these reports whatsoever.''

Mr. Mara would not discuss details of the talks either, but some officials involved in the negotiations said state officials were balking at the Giants' insistence on control of all events in the stadium and their proposal to use it without paying rent.

The Giants, who have been insisting that their 28-year-old stadium is outdated, had been in negotiations with the sports authority over a proposal to invest $300 million in renovation of the existing stadium. With Gov. James E. McGreevey adamant about not putting state dollars into sports projects, team officials resigned themselves to a renovation deal, even though they really wanted a new stadium.

The McGreevey administration, instead, put its political clout -- and tax dollars -- behind a $1.3 billion plan to broaden the use of the Meadowlands from sports -- football, basketball and horse racing -- to a family entertainment and retail complex called Meadowlands Xanadu. With the resignation of Mr. McGreevey and the arrival of Acting Governor Codey in November, the talks shifted. Mr. Codey, who is also the president of the State Senate, is an avowed sports fan, and he immediately indicated that he favored the primary use of the Meadowlands as a sports complex.

In particular, Mr. Codey said he would support construction of a stadium for the Giants in the Meadowlands, provided the financial details could be worked out.

State and team officials said that the Giants' latest proposal is a significant development. It calls for the state to issue tax-exempt bonds to raise construction money, which the team would repay out of stadium revenues.

But among the many other details of the deal, there is much that must be worked out. For one thing, state officials would have to be persuaded to break precedent and allow a stadium that is completely privately financed to be built on state land, with all its revenue and expenses controlled by the team.

The deal would also have to consider past sports authority insistence on sharing revenues from luxury boxes and club seats and controlling naming rights and off-season bookings of events like concerts.

The deal would also have to consider repayment of $117 million in outstanding state-backed debt on the existing stadium; the Giants are silent on the issue in their new proposal, one official said.

Two state officials said that it would be difficult to grant the team sweeping control of the stadium if the state backed the construction bonds.

Other questions remain about development in the Meadowlands. The Giants and state officials have been concerned about parking for both the stadium and visitors to the planned Xanadu Meadowlands. Under current arrangements, state officials said, the Giants have a virtual veto over development in the stadium's vicinity that could affect or diminish parking space on game days.

Mr. Goldberg, when asked about the issues, said, ''I would presume that if we are not able to come to a conclusion on construction of a new stadium, then we would revisit the renovation proposal as an alternative.''